Blue Starburst Bowl

The bowl was first turned about 2 months ago and set aside to dry out a bit. This weekend I was able to finish turn the bowl into this final shape. Late last night Alison came up with a nice free hand starburst design to inlay in the top of bowl. This was our first attempt at free hand carving and then inlaying such a large area. We think it came out pretty nice!

Incredible! I have always wanted to venture into hollow form turning, but am very intimidated by it. Ive tried to turn elm before and had a lot of trouble with the end grain tearing out. Is this common for all elm, or did I get a bad log?